Ugly Game of the Week: Week 3

I'll do my best to fit in here amongst all the Saturday navel-gazing. For me, Saturday was an exercise in How to Go Nuts and not Wake Up a Sleeping Three Month Old. But on to this week in train wrecks. First, let's catch up on the first two weeks "action".

Week One brought some humdingers. Bowling Green versus Idaho featured punts of 71 and 81 yards. I'm not sure how you punt 81 yards, but the guy that booted one 71 has to feel pretty bad about it. Maryland versus Miami was as big of a mess as expected. Maryland kicked 4 field goals for most of their 24 points, then gave up a pick-6 in the last minute to blow it. That game should be in the UGotW Year in Review. Crab cakes and football, that's what Maryland does? Well, the crab cakes are good.

Week Two featured Iowa making a bold move by refusing the Cy-Hawk trophy by giving up a late TD to Iowa State to tie, then losing in triple OT. In a twist, TCU bombed Air Force 35-19. AF scored two 4th quarter TDs to make the score reasonable. Air Force then declared TCU a state sponsor of terrorism and left Predator drones circling the stadium. CSU/UNCO was attended by 25,000 students dressed as empty seats to watch CSU club the Bears 33-14. Three CSU picks kept this from getting really messy. CSU had 28 first downs to go with only 4-14 on third down. That means they didn't need third down very often.

This Week

This week is Mascot Week! First off is the UTEP Miners versus the New Mexico State Aggies. I'm a sucker for good ol' blue-collar mascots, preferably mascots wielding weapons. This one comes down to pick-ax versus pistols.

Next is one of my favorite categories: Non-Plural Mascot fights! The Alabama Crimson Tide play the North Texas Mean Green. North Texas's real mascot is some sort of eagle, but I don't think eagle wins against elephant, not even if it's one of the eagles from Lord of the Rings (nerd!). They've already lost to FIU and Houston, so we may have to watch North Texas for a possible 0-for-season.

Last is Creepy/Crazy Mascot matchup, featuring the Indiana State Sycamores versus the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. "Big Red" was created in 1979 and we can only assume there were drugs involved, and possibly a medical procedure. I guess calling your team the Fightin' Polyps was out of the question. Big Red in action:

If that's not nightmare-inducing enough for you, they are playing this:

Indiana State decided not to go the Stanford route and have a tree on the sidelines, and created Sycamore Sam instead. Why they didn't cartoonize Larry Bird into a mascot, a la UNLV I'll never know.

Haha! I go to Indiana State... that thing is freaky and I almost had to wear the stupid thing for the Technology department corn hole tournament that me and my department was holding. Luckily we found a freshman with large enough 0.0